Late and Cold (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

“Leonie saw her,” declared Pembroke, grinning.

  “Saw her stab you? But, over the telephone you said . . .”

  “No, she saw her at the doings—at the banquet. She was got up as one of the maids who waited at table.”

  “That’s not Marion’s story, you know. At least, it wasn’t. I don’t know what she’s telling the police now.”

  “What was her story, then?” asked Leonie.

  “That she was supposed to go to a cookery class that night, but found she couldn’t afford the ingredients and so went to a News Theatre and then for a ride on the Underground, and so forth.”

  “Why?” demanded Pembroke.

  “Because she’d arranged for a baby-sitter and wanted a free evening.”

  “You must admit it sounds thin.”

  Timothy had thought this himself, when Marion produced it as an alibi, but he did not intend to admit it. He said,

  “If Marion tried to kill you, the inference is that she killed your sister, and that doesn’t make sense, you know.”

  “Why not? It makes complete sense to me,” said Leonie. So it did to Timothy. Pushed into a corner, he said,

  “Let’s give it a bit more thought. You see, if anybody gained by your sister’s death, Pembroke, you did. How about that?”

  “Fair enough,” said Leonie. “The only snag is that nobody could be shown to have gained by Olwen’s death until Olwen’s body was found and identified, and the finding of the body was quite accidental. You admit that, I suppose?”

  “Certainly. But for my interference in Marion’s affairs the body might never have been found. Oh, Lord, oh Lord!”

  “Well, then?”

  “Surely, sooner or later, Olwen’s death would have had to be presumed if Miranda was to benefit.”

  “Yes, that’s a reasonable supposition, but it wouldn’t have operated until after Pembroke’s own death, would it?” said Leonie.

  “You mean that, before Miranda could inherit Nanradoc, both you and your sister must be presumed to be dead,” said Timothy to Pembroke. “Yes, I see that, all right. But that brings me to another point, and it is very much in Marion’s favour, it seems to me.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  “While Miranda is alive there is no point at all in getting rid of you. While Miranda is alive, Marion doesn’t stand a chance of inheriting Nanradoc, so why should she run the awful risk of trying to kill you? I can’t believe that the police will arrest her, and that’s that, and I’m prepared to do everything in my power to get the charge dropped, if they bring one.”

  “Well, of course, I don’t want to see the poor girl in trouble,” said Pembroke. “I thought I’d made that clear.”

  “I’ve had to tell the police I saw her at the banquet,” said Leonie, “and, of course, as the police pointed out to Pembroke, if Marion had had one go at him, there was nothing to stop her from having another try, so we were asking for trouble having her in the house.”

  “But surely the police will need a lot more to go on than just your assertion that you’d seen her at the banquet,” said Timothy to Leonie.

  “Disguised as one of the waitresses, don’t forget.”

  “I don’t believe it, you know,” said Timothy. “I don’t believe she was at the banquet in any capacity whatsoever.”

  “I’m not a liar,” said Leonie, dangerously. Timothy gave up the argument while the charwoman brought in the tea.

  “Is Marion coming down?” he asked. Marion answered this question herself by appearing in the doorway.

  “Oh, hullo, Tim,” she said. Timothy looked at her sternly.

  “You’re being very silly,” he said. “What on earth made you throw yourself on to the dicks?”

  “I can’t discuss that now. The children will be here in a minute.”

  “Yes, and what’s going to happen to them if you get yourself arrested?”

  “Leonie says she’ll look after them. And now, please be quiet, because here they come.”

  The children, except for Miranda, who showed a disposition to climb on to Pembroke’s knee, seemed subdued.

  “Well,” said Leonie, with the forced brightness of the woman who does not like children, “and what did you all find to play at?”

  “Being models,” said Bryn.

  “Being models? Oh, dear! You haven’t been playing in the studio, have you?”

  “It rained. We had to play somewhere.”

  “Well, you could have come inside and read your books,” said Marion, in the harassed tones of a parent whose offspring are not showing to advantage in someone else’s house. “I’m sorry,” she added to Leonie, “but I don’t suppose they did any harm.”

  “I should rather they did not go into the studio,” said Leonie. “I’ve always got something half-finished in there, and if they took the damp cloths off . . .”

  “Oh, I’m sure they wouldn’t touch anything! You didn’t touch anything, did you?” asked Marion, rather desperately.

  “Well,” said Bryn, “not really.”

  “I had better go and see,” said Leonie, getting up. “Perhaps you’d pour out tea.”

  Tea was not a comfortable meal. No damage had been done in the studio, but the children had played with the clay and made a considerable mess with it, and it was discovered that Miranda, who, apparently, had been undressed and made to stand as the “model,” had accumulated a good deal of clay on her person.

  “We thought it was better than on her clothes,” explained Bron, in practical tones.

  “It will clog the bath,” said Leonie. The children made up for being disapproved of by stodging, with silent concentration, into thick bread and butter, fishpaste, jam, and cake, followed by fruit and cream, for the artists, although allergic to the young, were not reluctant to minister to their animal requirements.

  It was not until after dinner (extremely well-cooked by Pembroke) that Timothy had a chance to speak seriously to Marion.

  “Leonie and I can go along to the local, if you like,” said Pembroke. “I daresay you two have things to talk about.”

  “Nothing that can’t be said in front of witnesses, and I’d rather you stayed,” said Timothy. “Firstly, Marion, what’s all this nonsense? Don’t you realise, you little nitwit, that if you convince the dicks you stabbed Pembroke they’ll decide you killed Olwen?”

  “They couldn’t do that! I didn’t even know that Olwen existed,” she burst out in a frightened tone.

  “That’s a lie, for a start,” said Leonie angrily. Pembroke tried to restrain her by putting a hand on her arm, but she continued, “I believe you said you first met Pembroke when you were small. Where did you meet him? Tell Tim that!”

  “I don’t remember. Don’t badger me!”

  “Then I’ll remember for you. The only place you could have met him when you were a child was at Nanradoc House, and Olwen was living there, too. Pembroke, I assure you, didn’t leave Nanradoc until after he married me and had quarrelled with his sister. You’ve got a guilty conscience over something, and that’s why you’re trying to give yourself up to the police.”

  “Well,” said Timothy, “I’m not going to let you, and that’s flat!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Private Eye

  Marion was not to be reasoned with. She refused point blank to see Timothy again, after he had left Mold, and sent a message to him by the solicitor he had found for her to tell him that it did not matter what happened to her, she was sick of life, anyway, and might as well be in prison as anywhere else.

  “Well, I’m not proposing to leave it at that,” said Timothy to his own solicitor, with whom he had consulted. “I’m going to put a private eye to work. Can you recommend anybody?”

  “No, I cannot,” replied the lawyer distastefully. “We have no dealings with such persons. I can, however, put you in touch with a firm of solicitors who specialise in cases of divorce. They may be able to give you the name of somebody of the sort you have in mind. As for Miss
Marion Jones, she is probably suffering from the shock of the discovery of her cousin’s body. Shock can have strange effects. When she has recovered a little, you may find her more co-operative. My advice would be to wait until this happier state of mind comes about, before you entrust her affairs to a private detective.”

  “I’d like the name and address of this firm you mention, anyway,” said Timothy, “and, before I go to them, I will think over what you have said.”

  No amount of thinking over the lawyer’s advice, however, convinced him that matters could be left as they were, so, two days later, having come to a settled conclusion, he rang up and arranged for an interview with the firm whose name he had been given, and on the following afternoon he saw the senior partner and received the name and address of a retired Inspector of Police who was now a freelance and did private work for the firm.

  He found the retired Inspector Grant a man of few words and long silences. One of these ensued after Timothy had outlined the case to him. At last he said,

  “So if we could clear the lassie of this charge of stabbing her cousin in the back after the ending of the banquet, you think the further charge which you believe to be pending would have to be dropped? I’m not saying you might not be right about that. Let me think, now.”

  He sat and cogitated for perhaps five minutes and, at the end of that time, he shook his head.

  “It will be awful difficult,” he said lugubriously. “Aye, awful difficult it will be. You see, there’s the lassie’s own confession.”

  “I know,” said Timothy, “but if I believed a word of it I wouldn’t be here taking up your time, Mr. Grant. You’d almost think she means it when she says she wants to get herself arrested and thrown into the jug, and she certainly will be, the way she’s going on.”

  The grey-haired, enigmatical Scotsman looked at him. There was another long silence. Timothy took out his cigarette case and lighter and, still without speaking, Grant accepted a cigarette and a light. At last he said,

  “Man, I think I understand what she’s about.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “That maybe the lassie would feel safer in prison than out of it. Now we have to find out the reason for this, if it is true. And, as a starting-point, I am going to assume that it is true. If so, this is indicative of the fact that, whether she has enemies or not, she thinks she has. Moreover, she thinks they will stick at nothing. In other words, she believes that her life may be in danger while she is loose in the world. Not for anything less than a fear for her very life would a respectable young lass be induced to confess to a very dirty, backhanded crime. What say you?”

  “Well, yes, it’s a starting-point, certainly, Mr. Grant. You are thinking of this Father Ignatius and the woman who calls herself Olwen Jones, I suppose.”

  “Maybe, but I do not exclude Mr. Pembroke Pritchard Jones and his wife. My experience has been that if you are looking at dirty work, Mr. Herring, look first, and look hardest, at the members of the family concerned.”

  “I can’t see how Marion can be a danger to Pembroke and Leonie,” said Timothy.

  “Can you not? Well, well, you know them and I do not, but there are points of interest about what you tell me. I shall think them over, and then I shall communicate with you.” He sank again into a silence which Timothy did not like to break. He was about to light another cigarette when Grant came to the surface and said, “Well, I’ll wish you a very good afternoon, Mr. Herring. You’ll be hearing from me. Aye, you’ll be hearing very soon, I trust.”

  This happened even sooner than Timothy had anticipated. Within a week he received Grant’s first report. It was not only interesting but important. Grant, it appeared, having been a member of the regular Force for many years, had numerous contacts, some of them policemen, some of them “grasses,” some of them eminent, some of them obscure. In this particular instance he had his facts straight from the horse’s mouth; in fact, they came from the detective-inspector in charge of the case.

  “The police are at present unlikely to proceed on Miss Marion Jones’s confession,” Grant wrote. “Reasons as listed below:”

  (1) She was teaching at her school on the required date. The school does not close until 4.30 p.m. Attested.

  (2) She was at her post again at 8.45 a.m. on the following morning. Attested.

  (3) From these facts, checked with headmistress and colleagues, it is considered unlikely that she should have been able to get to Nanradoc and back between the times stated, but enquiries are being instituted at railway stations.

  (4) No person answering to her description can be accounted for among those employed to cook and serve the dinner after which Mr. Pembroke Jones was wounded by stabbing.

  “I should wish, sir,” Grant’s letter continued, “to add the following observations:”

  (1) From the gates of her school, Miss Marion Jones could have caught a bus for the 5.50 p.m. fast train to Chester, but, if so, she did not put in an appearance at Nanradoc even at 9.30 p.m. when the dinner was over. She could not have reached Nanradoc in the time allowed.

  (2) She could have travelled back at night and remained at the London terminus until she returned to school on the following morning, but if (1) does not apply, then neither does (2).

  (3) There is nothing more to report on this at present, but I shall keep myself informed.

  (4) This is now a dead end, so far as the police are concerned, and they are unlikely to proceed with it further. I should add that they are now combing out the private hire people, but, in view of the prohibitive cost of such a return journey by hired car, particularly as the return itself would have had to be made by night, they are not hopeful of success in proving that Miss Marion Jones used this form of transport, and are strongly inclined to treat her confession as bogus.

  I will keep you further informed, sir, of what transpires, and have the honour to remain,

  Your obedient servant,

  J. C. Grant.

  Timothy was relieved when he had read this letter, and amused himself that evening by inventing various ways in which Marion, if expense had been no object, might have got to Nanradoc and back between the times stated. She could have chartered a private aeroplane and flown. There was plenty of room to land on the field behind Nanradoc House. She might be the fortunate possessor of a magic carpet. She might have thumbed a lift in a car. He worked out the mileage, but decided that the time factor was decisive. Marion could not possibly have left school after four-thirty and got to Nanradoc in time to stab Pembroke at about ten.

  Amused by his own conceits of how Marion could have reached Nanradoc in time to attack Jones that night, he continued to indulge his fancies until one came up which caused him some disquiet, so much, in fact, that he decided to forget it, to thrust it out of his mind. In modern secondary schools there were such amenities as what the teachers called free periods, intended to be used as marking times. Marion herself had mentioned them.

  Suppose she had had, say, the second period free? That might mean that she could have left the school at about half-past two. There was yet another possibility. Suppose she had established an alibi by marking the register, and then had told the class that she had to see the headmistress and, on the strength of this excuse, had left them to their own devices and simply walked off the premises and caught a train? If she had left, say, at around two o’clock, she could have got to Nanradoc by half-past nine by hiring a car for the last part of the journey, the journey up the Pass. She would have had enough money. She had lived rent-free all the time she had been at the Phisbe headquarters, and he himself had paid the bills at the Ealing Common boarding-house.

  Grant’s second report was the reverse of reassuring, and Timothy, who had a theory that thoughts and ideas can be air-borne like thistledown or dandelion seeds, wondered afterwards whether his own idle speculations could have lodged themselves in Grant’s methodical mind. The second report ran:

  On thinking matters over, it occurred to me that the
difficulty about the time factor could be readily overcome if it could be shown that Miss Marion Jones left her school at a considerably earlier hour than that of four-thirty, when the school normally closes. I do not intend to suggest this to my friend Detective-Inspector Hearnes without your express sanction, but, as it has occurred to me, there is every chance that it will also occur to him.

  I should wish to have your explicit instructions on this point, as I formed the opinion at our interview that you were retaining me to safeguard the interests of the lady in question and not vice-versa.

  In a great fright Timothy telephoned to say that, in his opinion, it could not serve anybody’s interest to find ways by which Miss Marion Jones could have reached Nanradoc that evening, that this would only serve to confuse the issue and that the ends of justice would best be served by leaving well alone. He thanked Grant for pointing out an obvious possibility, and refrained from saying that it had already occurred to himself. He offered a retaining fee until such time as Scotland Yard crossed Marion and her confession off their list, and requested Grant to suspend all further enquiries until he heard from him again.

  Nevertheless, he was very seriously perturbed. He blamed himself for having been foolish enough to introduce a private detective into a matter which was going along quite nicely on its own, but he congratulated himself that, if he had taken an ill-considered step, at least he had taken it in company with an honest man. He wondered what would have been the outcome had Grant pursued his enquiries and then had blackmailed either Marion or himself (both of them, perhaps) on the strength of the results.

  All his former doubts about Marion came flooding back, added to others which had come to him in the form of remarks made by other people, notably by Leonie Bing. He tried to dismiss these by reminding himself that Leonie mixed a certain amount of malice with her shrewdness, but, even so, there had been much in her incisive observations. He recalled, in particular, two of these. They had imprinted themselves on his mind more definitely than he had realised. The first was on the occasion of his preliminary meeting with the artists.